“So early?” Yessica propped a hand on her cocked hip. “Send that one off to her room”—she waved a hand at Camila—“and come have a dip in the pool with me.”
“We’re not dressed for swimming.” He tossed back the last of his aguardiente and stood.
“Since when do you and I need clothes?” She tilted her head and pushed out her mouth to emulate a puffy-lipped pout.
Her duck face detracted from her pretty features.
Camila stood motionless beside him with her hands fisted at her sides and a twitch in her eye. She was upset, but it had nothing to do with Yessica. Her attention was glued to Frizz’s slave, her body leaning subtly toward the woman on the floor as if she wanted to swoop in and protect.
“Goodnight, Yessica.” He curled his fingers around Camila’s upper arm and dragged her away from the table.
“I’ll walk with you.” Nico joined his side.
They strolled in silence toward the west wing. Camila dragged her feet, seemingly losing strength with every step thanks to the painkiller.
Matias’ hands flexed with the overwhelming urge to carry her. But preferential treatment wouldn’t have gone unnoticed in the busy halls as residents geared up for the usual late night parties in the various sections of the estate.
When he reached the wooden doors to his rooms and found the corridor empty, he lifted her listless body into his arms. She rolled against his chest, and a night’s worth of tension uncoiled inside him.
Nico stepped in front of the retinal scanner and opened the door for him. Then Nico trailed him through the expansive living space and into the bedroom.
By the time he laid her on the bed, she was out. Breaths deep and even. Eyelids relaxed. Lashes fanning over her cheeks. Gorgeous as sin.
He rolled her to her stomach and sat on the edge of the mattress to tackle the ties of the corset.
Nico stood at the foot of the bed, watching intently, his natural scowl darkening the edges of his mouth.
“Well?” Matias unraveled the knot at her tailbone and worked his way up her spine, slowly loosening the cinch.
“We still don’t know if Gerardo revealed—”
Matias made a slashing gesture with his fingers across his neck and aimed a pointed glare at Camila. He was almost positive she was asleep, but the almost was too big a risk. He wasn’t ready for her to know this secret, and the gritty details of this conversation could wait until morning.
“We’ll just keep doing what we’re doing.” He reached the last tie on her back and wiggled the corset loose around her ribs. “If the mole knows, he or she will expose it soon enough.”
“Camila’s going to find out, regardless.” Nico clasped his hands behind his back. “I still don’t understand how you intend on keeping this from her while she’s living here, parce.”
There were so many things she didn’t know, like the fact that he’d had a brother by blood or why her parents died. She didn’t know the reason he’d been ripped away from her or what his role was in the cartel.
Soon, she would learn that the reason she was here was not to stop human trafficking, but to uncover the truth.
“Trust me.” Matias stood and removed his suit jacket, his hands confident and mind clear.
“I trust you unequivocally with our lives.” Nico’s eyes flashed, his voice sharp. “That doesn’t mean I have to like this asinine plan.”
“As you’ve said for the millionth time.”
“Just making sure we understand one another.” Nico glanced at Camila’s sleeping form, and his scowl bent into a half-scowl. “Que duermas bien.”
“Buenas noches.”
As the tread of Nico’s shoes retreated and the doors to the suite shut behind him, Matias removed the rest of his clothes and locked his gun in the closet. Then he turned his attention to the woman in his bed.
Fifteen minutes later, she lay naked beneath the sheets with fresh ointment on her thighs. She’d slept through it all and continued to sleep as he removed the collar and set it in the drawer beside the bed. Then he tucked in behind her, his chest against her back, and slowly explored every exquisite bend, dip, and slender bone of her body.
Despite the ache in his cock, he was happier than he’d been since the last time he held her like this.
He closed his eyes in memory, and the grass tickled his back. The sun warmed his face. Her skin pressed against his, legs entangled, with the aroma of citrus and earth in the air.
Back then he had to worry about Venomous Lemonous chasing them apart with a stick.
He opened his eyes and brushed his lips against the delicate shell of her ear.
Now he faced a different opponent, one less tangible but far angrier. Her heart might’ve been locked up like a fortress, but it wasn’t impenetrable.
He shut off the light and curled his body tightly around hers.
Twelve years, he’d imagined waking to the smell of sex and contentment and her tangled in the sheets around him. Tomorrow morning, that dream would become a reality. And after that?
He had a lot of fucking work to do.
CAMILA WOKE TO THE CARESS of fingers on her hip and rapid breaths falling against her nape. She blinked in the darkness and held herself immobile on her side, arms hugging the pillow beneath her head, her own breath parked in her throat.
Fingertips trailed along her waist, traced the grooves of her ribs, and lingered on the underside of her breast. Her breath escaped, but she kept it slow and stable, feigning sleep. The same instinct that had never saved her in Van’s attic.
Did she actually think she’d make it through the night without Matias fucking her? She’d hoped. Like press my goddamn hands together and pray to whoever’s listening hoped. After he’d beaten her, fucked her face, and fed her on the floor beside a woman with stitched lips, her libido had shriveled up and died.
But she knew better than to hope. He’d already stripped her naked—the corset, panties, and collar gone. Not even the sheet covered her.
Every hair on her body stood up, screaming at her to bite, choke, kick, and run the fuck away. Could she get past the eye scanner? Slip around the guards? Hijack the helicopter? No chance in hell she’d survive the Amazon rainforest.
She was stuck here. I put myself here.
Her plan had been ten kinds of fucked in the head.
Masculine heat saturated her back, his legs intertwined with hers, the hard muscles in his thighs and calves flexing with his rapid breaths. And his hand shook, fucking vibrated as he cupped and kneaded her breast.
How long had he been awake? Touching her and working himself into this panting, trembling state?
Maybe his hands shook with all the women he fucked, but at gut level, she didn’t believe it.
He wasn’t taking. Taking would?
??ve been fingers digging, pinching, claiming. No, shaking meant restraint.
If the circumstances had been different, she would’ve been shaking with breathy enthusiasm. He was the one she’d always fantasized about during sex, but now that she was in his bed, her stomach knotted.
Moving only her eyes, she sought out the clock on the bedside table. 3:13 AM.
As if the passing of minutes, days, years even mattered. Time might as well have been frozen. Like her lungs. And her life.
He lowered his hand to her hipbone, fingers curling against the juncture of her groin and thigh, reaching, stretching toward her pussy.
Her pulse sprinted, and her mouth went dry. She kept her thighs pinched together and squeezed her eyes shut. I don’t want this. God, please, I don’t want to be forced.
The welts on her skin stung each time she tensed. What if he decided to be really cruel and dig his fingers against them? She’d probably pass out.
With his hand on her hip, he ground against her in tight, slow rolling motions. The hair below his abs rubbed against her ass, and every hard naked inch of him twitched—his chest, his legs, his swollen erection. Goose bumps shivered down her spine.
She feared him as all monsters were meant to be feared in the dark. Only he wasn’t under the bed. He was in it, his breath on her neck, skin against skin, and he was hungry.
If she looked over her shoulder, she’d find a monster with eyes of golden green, wearing a face she once caressed and kissed and loved. With hair she’d stroked with intimate affection, the strands in every shade of the deepest black—the color of his soul.
“I know you’re awake,” he said in a rumbling voice and lowered his lips to her neck, whiskers scratching and teeth scraping.
“I don’t want this.” Her throat closed up, strangling her voice. “Please, Matias.”
He bit her earlobe then suckled the sting. “I’ll change your mind.”
Not happening. Her mind hurdled along a course that ended with a punch to the esophagus, his skull slamming against the marble floor repeatedly, and castration. She couldn’t escape, but maybe a chokehold would help him understand how fucking wrong it was to take an unwilling woman.